Category: religion

The recent Islam-inspired murder in London allowed us to glimpse the mind of a jihadi. One thing that I noticed was how he proudly said that this is “an eye for an eye” for the people killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Even the non-religious amongst us, I believe, rarely question this Biblical concept of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. However, once you do think about it, you realise how barbaric such a legal system would be. We do not dole out identical punishments to fit crimes, nor would this be desirable or even possible. What is to be done with rape? What about mass murder? What if, as happened recently in Saudi Arabia, one person inadvertently paralyzes another while fighting?
Of course it would be barbaric or impossible to try to impose an identical punishment for each of these crimes.
The only crime that some developed societies do impose an eye for an eye for is quite controversial: the death penalty for murder. This too, is considered barbaric by many people.
So, let’s stop just accepting silly old concepts because they’ve been around for so long.
This London murderer was deluded not just by his religion, but also by his understanding of what justice truly is.

The lack of rationalism imbedded in an act so heinous as hijacking a plane with the sole purpose of using that plane as a weapon of murder-suicide is hard to grasp for most of us. But then, most of us do not live our lives with the irrational belief that killing ourselves while murdering innocents will send us to Paradise.

The bombing in Boston has demonstrated quite clearly that fighting such irrationalism is incredibly difficult when we limit our counter-terrorism to rational actions.
Once I realised this, I quickly thought of one irrational, and highly cost-effective method of shielding airplanes from Islamic terrorism. It’s simple: place a Koran on every plane. Since Muslims are willing to riot when someone else defiles a Koran anywhere in the world, it would seem that destroying a plane with a Koran on it would be the height of sacrilege. So, as I see it, the act of martyrdom would be negated by intentionally destroying the precious, precious Koran. Problem solved!

I recently received a comment from Ali Naqash on a blog that I wrote a while back called Can Democracy and Islam Coexist? It’s stupidity is mind-blowing. I really don’t know where to start in the criticism of this comment. Without question, it deserves the title of “The Dumbest Comment”. Here it is, enjoy:

“Democracy is not the way of forward, since it gives no right to women like they deserve to be given. It treats them like waste. But it is only through morality and justice as in Islam that one can expect women to be treated like Queens. This article proves that Muslims are sick and tired of people like you trying to FORCE democracy on us! We DONT want your democracy. Thank you. We would be much happier without it.”

After the recent Boston Bombings, I had some discussions with a fellow blogger named sarsourraaa. I suggested that considering the number of ordinary moderate Muslims who are so quickly being turned into extremists, perhaps the Muslim community should start taking a long hard look at their community. The reason being that Muslims are humans, and all humans are capable of being persuaded into evil acts given the right conditions. The large number of suicide bombings that we have seen in the past decade by Muslims would seem to indicate that there is something about the contemporary Muslim faith that is provoking such behavior.

Of course, this observation was met with claims that I am “ignorant” and “uneducated” (Surprisingly, I don’t think I was called ‘racist’, which is a common go-to slander by people who are unwilling to be self-critical. So, I commend her for that.).

Ironically, much to sarsourraaa’s chagrin, I found an excellent article written by Muslim journalist Asra Quratulain Nomani, that echoes my sentiments!

So, will sarsourraaa come over to my side or will she abandon her tribe member?

For all Muslims living in Western countries who think that they are being persecuted because their brethren are carrying out terrorist attacks, you clearly don’t understand what it means to be persecuted. Actually, the reverse is much more true. Christians (and obviously Jews) are genuinely persecuted in Muslim countries Although I am not a Christian or a Jew, I sympathize with any group which is persecuted.

Meeting a random American who snubs you because you are Muslim (especially immediately after an Islamic terrorist attack) is not persecution. Sorry. You don’t get to elevate that experience to persecution or else you diminish the meaning of the word “persecute”.

Now, where’s my evidence? I will make way for Ayaan Hirsi Ali and let you read for yourself. Ironically, Muslims often complain about how their plight is not discussed in the media enough. Yet, the plight of Christians in Muslim countries is little known to the vast majority of people. Here is the article:

This argument occurred to me last night and it isn’t well fleshed out — it’s merely a skeleton of an idea. It is a reason why religion doesn’t make sense which I have never heard — though, no doubt, someone has come up with this idea or something very similar.

So, this is where you come in. Since this idea is not completely formed, I’d like some criticism or additions to the idea to make it more understandable and sensible. Or, reassurance that it already makes sense 🙂

So here it is:

I’ve often heard the same response from a believer, when someone says, “Isn’t it a coincidence that most people believe in the same God as their parents?” The response: “You don’t realize that a lot of people actually change their religions as they come to understand the world better.”

Ok, leaving aside the questionable reference to “a lot of people,” this statement still seems to actually be evidence against God, not for God.

Why? Because if there were an absolutely correct religion, why would finding that religion be up to the capricious nature of humans?

There are many much less important things in the world that are not left to capricious thinking. We all know that humans normally have two arms. We all know that eating certain things can kill us. There is no wiggle room on these mundane things. If someone isn’t born with two arms we consider that a genetic or developmental error. If someone thinks that eating cyanide is healthy, that is a judgement error.

Yet, if someone changes their mind from believing that Christianity is the one true religion to believing that Hinduism is the one true religion — or, more importantly vice versa, which thereby nullifies the possibility of either change being correct — it is not considered an error.

Again, I’m not sure if this is a fully formed argument or if I’m just restating an argument made by someone else in different words. Any criticism appreciated 🙂